Ideal Composition Lesson Series

Dear composers,

A question: What do you think would the ideal series of composition lessons teach the student, and in what order? Why?

An idea: Let us build an "Interactive Composition Self-Study Forum".

In it a composition student can progress from 0 to 100 all by himself, by personal initiative without a personal tutor. The idea is that it would be a place where every composition student would find what he/she needs, no matter what his/her level of knowledge. We have a great opportunity to collectively create such a series of lessons. What is more, the students will provide feedback and the lessons will improve and be refined with time and student-provided feedback.

I am suggesting this because of:

1) Several shortcomings of the lessons that are provided via student-teacher pairs:
a) They are taking very long to progress.
b) There may be a lot of repetition across the lessons of different student-teacher pairs.

2) The student may know best what he or she needs and can find it in a self-study program, while the teacher knows best what the average student needs and can provide it for a self-study program.

Luder Artinian

I'm all for this (as a [potential] student).

but that takes away the point of the lessons. we don't care about the average student, we care about 1 student. it is important that the teachers assess where the student is, and then tailor challenges and lessons to that skill level. also, a form like this may inspire bad habits to continue. for example, with no feedback, that person who thinks he's doing alright may be totally off track, or vice versa, you see where I'm coming from?

But I still think it will provide a good basis from which to branch off into individual lessons.

Luder

I will disagree vehamently with the OP of this thread.

Generally, the student is the LAST person who "knows best what he needs" in a composition lesson. As a matter of fact, most students of composition barely have any conception of what is lacking from their craft without the assistance of a teacher. Without feedback from a teacher, as has been rightly mentionned, there is no way for the student to KNOW whether or not the application of technique is being done correctly or in the right context.

I think, though, that he is suggesting the teachers do it... otherwise, you are right, it would be lame.

I think this could work, if it were only on basic stuff, and we kept the teaching system for working on a project of the student's.

I think most teachers will be glad to cooperate together to contribute to something more ambitious and lasting alongside their contribution of teaching individual students. The web provides for such cooperation. The teachers will also learn from each other as well as from their students. And the students may learn something more from a group of cooperating teachers than they would from a single teacher.

Luder

I think that a list of lessons for what an absolute beginner should go through is more ideal. For example the list might look like:

Basic theory
Harmony
Structure
etc.

The reason for this is because, as pointed out, the student does not know what's best for themselves but then neither does the teacher sometimes on an internet forum. It is not the same as a face-to-face lesson where the teacher can gain a better understanding of their student's needs therefore they do not always teach what is best. The internet may be able to bring people from other continents together but it also limits conversation. A list of the order of lessons a student should go through means that a student can see exactly what they need to learn and what they may want to patch up on. The way the lessons are structured currently do not allow this as the teacher can only have an idea of their student's level and do not know if all the basics and fundamentals have been taught to an acceptable standard.

A one-size-fits-all type of lesson defeats the whole point of what the forum is trying to do. Instead, a guideline for students can enable them to choose a subject that will help them develop as a composer in the best possible way. Once they have decided on what they want to study, students can find teachers who will be able to tailor lessons according to their ability and needs.

As I can agree with that a beginner composer does not necessarily "know best what he needs", I would still be interested in something like a collaboration on various areas of composition with the intent to broaden the knowledge that we have and make it easily reachable, cause I realize that we have some really skilled and experienced composers here, and it'd be really great if they'd share their knowledge for the larger masses. I'd say no to wasting the student-teacher pairs as I believe most people need some guidance to get somewhere with their composition (including me).